Feasibility-preserving crossover for maximum k-coverage problem

The maximum k-coverage problem is a generalized version of covering problems. We introduce the problem formally and analyze its property in relation to the operators of genetic algorithm. Based on the analysis, we propose a new crossover tailored to the maximum k-coverage problem. While traditional n-point crossovers have a problem of requiring repair steps, the proposed crossover has an additional advantage of always producing feasible solutions. We give a comparative analysis of the proposed crossover through experiments.